In the construction of ornamental lighting fixtures, such as chandeliers, it is common to incorporate vertical “curtains” of decorative ornaments. These curtains are typically are made from “chains” of ornaments, for example, chains of suspended octagonal crystals. The most widely used and cost effective crystal element used in the construction of crystal chandeliers is the 14-millimeter (mm) octagon. For example, the 14-mm octagon is the preferred ornament used for candle-to-candle swag chains in traditional chandeliers, vertical curtain chains for contemporary fixture designs, and in a variety of other common crystal configurations.
Spherical facetted beads are widely used components in the jewelry industry, and are sometimes used in the fixture industry. Spherical faceted beads are typically available in a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors. Historically, spherical faceted beads have had some limited use in the construction of chandeliers. More recently, the use of spherical faceted beads has increased; particularly, these beads are used to line the arms and scrolls of traditional chandeliers and in candle-to-candle swag chains. There have also been some attempts to use such jewelry beads to create crystal curtains.
The 14-mm crystal octagon ornaments became the preferred component for use in crystal curtain designs with the invention by Arnold Schonbek of the so called “bow tie connector,” for example, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,629,571. The Schonbek bow tie connector provides the advantage of preventing ornament chains from twisting. By preventing twisting, the designer can create the visual effect of a continuous crystal surface, for example, by arranging octagons broad side out and adjacent to one another. Prior to the introduction of the Schonbek connector, interlocking wire loops were used to link ornamental crystals in chains. Not only did these interlocking wire loops vary in length, but wire loops also allowed the individual crystals to undesirably rotate and twist. As a result, when using wire lops, the orientation of ornaments one-to-another was often compromised. For example, the resulting crystal surface was typically interrupted by many openings and gaps due to the imprecision of the positioning of the ornaments, for example, the octagonal ornaments.
Even with the use and broad acceptance of the Schonbek connector, the resulting crystal curtains that used these connectors often lacked “density,” that is, often lacked a uniform continuous ornament display. Among other things, this lack of density is primarily due to the gaps or discontinuities that could appear between adjacent ornaments. This lack of density that is typical of prior art ornament arrangements is clearly shown in FIG. 1.
As shown in FIG. 1, an arrangement 10 of octagonal crystals 12 connected by the connectors 14 disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,629,571 typically resulted in undesirable gaps 16 between crystals 12. Among other things, these gaps 16 reduce the visually density of the display and introduce unsightly views into the interior of the chandelier.
An improvement in the appearance of lighting fixtures was realized in another innovation of Arnold Schonbek. As shown in FIG. 2A, Mr. Schonbek introduced a crystal support arrangement 20 including a specially designed metal support ring 22. Support ring 22 functions to raise every other octagon chain 24 and position the octagon crystals 26 in chains 24 in an interlocking arrangement with octagonal crystals 26 in adjacent crystal chains 28. A similar prior art interlocking arrangement 30 is shown in FIG. 2B having ring 32 and crystal chains 34 and 38. The arrangement shown in FIG. 2B is typical of the ornament mountings in chandeliers provided by A. Schonbek & Co. Inc. (now affiliated with Schonbek Worldwide Lighting Inc. of Plattsburgh, N.Y.) under the trade name “Mirabelle.” As shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, these crystal arrangements have the effect of significantly reducing the size of the gaps 25 and 35, respectively, between the octagonal crystals.
Though an improvement in the art, the arrangements shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B are still far from ideal. For example, undesirable gaps 25 and 35 are still provided between the chains 24 and 28 and chains 34 and 38, respectively. In addition, these arrangements shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B inherently required the exposure of horizontal structures, that is, the support rings 22 and 32, having no crystal ornaments. These structures typically are provided to have a height or thickness sufficient to raise every other chain into the interlocking position. In many ornamental fixture designs this banding (which is sometimes referred to as “vertical banding”) introduced an unwelcome visual element.
One prior art ornament arrangement that reduces the required size of the vertical banding is shown in FIG. 3. In this prior art arrangement 40, interlocking of octagonal crystals can be provided by suspending the adjacent an intermediate crystal chain 48 between adjacent chains 44 from an appropriately longer wire hook 42 suspended from a gallery ring 43. However, arrangement 40 is also undesirable because it is characterized by especially unsightly gaps 45 at the top of the alternating chains 44, 48.
Another prior art improvement in the design of chandeliers having crystal curtains is provided with the development of the “pocket gallery”, for example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,144,541. The pocket gallery, or the gallery plate having apertures or “pockets” for retaining ornaments, reduced or eliminated the disturbing appearance of vertical banding associated with a standing gallery ring while precisely positioning adjacent chains in relation to one another. However, the clean, metal-free appearance of the pocket gallery design is gained at the expense of a less dense curtain, since the individual octagons are typically arrayed along side one another, once again opening up square-shaped gaps, for example, similar to gaps 16 of FIG. 1.
Attempts have been made by artisans in the field to use facetted bead chains to create crystal curtains. However, these designs have generally been unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. For example, given their spherical shape, facetted beads are not a cost effective means of covering an ornamental surface. Furthermore, satisfactory methods for precisely positioning of such beads did not exist in the art.
Some attempts have been made to use square crystal chains, as shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B. FIG. 4A shows a front elevation view of an ornament arrangement 50 having a plurality of vertical ornament chains 52 comprising square ornaments 54. FIG. 4B is a plan view of a section of gallery plate 56 used in arrangement 50. Chains 52 are mounted in a gallery plate 56 having apertures 58 that retain ornaments 54 to suspend chains 52. Though arrangement 50 produces a dense crystal curtain, the disadvantage of arrangement 50 is that square crystals are not preferred; specifically, the faceting pattern of square crystals inherently reduces the prismatic effect of the appearance of the fixture.
Another prior art attempt to provide a dense, vertically hanging, crystal curtain is provided by the prior art arrangement shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B. FIG. 5A shows a front elevation view of an ornament arrangement 60 having a plurality of vertical ornament chains 62 comprising octagonal ornaments 64. FIG. 5B is a plan view of a section of gallery plate 66 used in arrangement 60. Prior art arrangement 60 increased the density of the crystal presentation with the addition of glass rods 68 suspended in apertures 68 in gallery plate 66 between adjacent octagon chains 64 suspended in apertures 69 in gallery plate 66. However, since the octagons 64 and glass rods 68 do not interlock, undesirable gaps 65 are left in the “curtain” of ornaments. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, in arrangement 60, the optical effect of the light in the glass rods 68 provides the desirable effect of drawing the eye of the viewer away from the fixture's internal components, for example, away from a chandelier's internal components. Thus, in this aspect, prior art arrangement 60 provides some improvement over arrangements that came before it.
However, clearly, these, and other, examples of prior art crystal mounting arrangements are characterized by undesirable gaps between ornaments. These gaps not only interrupt the desired uniform continuous display preferred in lighting fixtures, but these gaps may also undesirably expose internal components of the fixture, for example, internal structural components, that may be unsightly or simply interfere with the desired presentation intended by the designer of the fixture. These and other disadvantages of the prior art are overcome by aspects of the present invention.